


Cool Water

by PilotFlux



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Whump, but hes got lots of people who love him, peter has trauma, we know this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23123734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilotFlux/pseuds/PilotFlux
Summary: Peter’s no stranger to trauma. I mean, it’s basically his life, at this point. His parents die, then his uncle gets shot in the chest right in front of him (which is his fault, regardless of what May and the policemen and the school counselor tell him), and then he catches a serious case of parent feels for Mr. Stark because, dammit, his brain still demands the presence of a father figure, and then he goes on a wild, interstate goose chase for a psycho with mechanical wings who’s stealing alien tech, and then a building gets dropped on his head.Right. That.Life after catching the Vulture hadn’t been… Easy. Nah, because things for Parkers are never easy, are they? Nosirry. Especially not Peter, orphaned and traumatized teenage superhero with a guilt complex ten times higher than the skyscrapers he can climb, never searching for hardships, but always catching them with an oomf regardless.When the nightmares first start happening, he doesn’t tell May. Or Mr. Stark. Or Happy. Or Ned, or MJ, or hell, even Flash. He doesn’t tell anyone.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 90





	Cool Water

**Author's Note:**

> Read a bunch of Whump fics and comfort fics and this is the un-beta'd result. first fandom post in months. hope yall're doing good.  
> also, panic attacks and nightmares ahead. know your triggers.   
> anywhozers, enjoy. :)

Peter’s no stranger to trauma. I mean, it’s basically his life, at this point. His parents die, then his uncle gets shot in the chest right in front of him (which is his fault, regardless of what May and the policemen and the school counselor tell him), and then he catches a serious case of parent feels for Mr. Stark because, dammit, his brain still _demands_ the presence of a father figure, and then he goes on a wild, interstate goose chase for a psycho with mechanical wings who’s stealing alien tech, and then a _building gets dropped on his head._

Right. That.

Life after catching the Vulture hadn’t been… Easy. Nah, because things for Parkers are never easy, are they? Nosirry. Especially not Peter, orphaned and traumatized teenage superhero with a guilt complex ten times higher than the skyscrapers he can climb, never searching for hardships but always catching them with an _oomf_ regardless.

When the nightmares first start happening, he doesn’t tell May. Or Mr. Stark. Or Happy. Or Ned, or MJ, or hell, even Flash. He doesn’t tell anyone.

Weirdly, it actually happened in his seventh period lit class, because it was a reading day and Peter’s head was pounding from a short afternoon patrol that took up his free period, and he knew Mr. Largueese wouldn’t notice. So he burrowed his head into folded forearms, sighing quietly and contentedly as the soft fabric of his hoodie beckoned him into sleep.

Mr. Largueese did end up noticing, actually, because after what couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later he’s ripped from a tiny, dark, scalding hot room that’s getting smaller and smaller and is dripping with water and he’s _screaming_ at the top of his lungs, embarrassing himself and startling everyone in the room, including Flash, who stares at him with wide eyes and says “What in the absolute _fuck_ was that, Parker?” before he mutters an excuse and sprints to the bathroom, splashing cool water on his face and inhaling deeply, trying to calm the machinegun pace of his heart and lungs.

That was the first time. His lit teacher asked him about it, and Peter told him the truth- Minus the actual nightmare itself, obviously, he’s not _that_ honest- with a sincere apology and a promise that it wouldn’t happen again.

And it doesn’t. Not in lit, at least. 

The nightmares become a frequent occurrence after that, usually hitting him at midnight, leaving him a quaking mess, covered in a cold sweat with panting breaths and too-fast heartbeats. They vary frequently, now- Sometimes, it’s the dark room from the first time, scalding and shrinking. Others, it’s like a tape recording from his mind; a carbon copy of the warehouse collapse or, at least, the senses of it. Sometimes, he doesn’t even hear anything- It’s just ringing silence as he stares into a pool of water mixed with his own blood, the literal _tons_ of concrete crushing him, the heat gathering as his body works overtime to repair the wounds. Sometimes, it’s Toomes, looking down at him as his chest is smashed by ridiculously strong talons, and Peter can feel his ribs popping, breaking and dislocating. Sometimes, it’s the other way around, and he remembers the sand and how oddly cool it was as it covered his face, the same claws digging horribly deep into his back, leaving scars that still, somehow, haven’t managed to fade, even after all this time.

It doesn’t matter how bad the nightmares are, he never tells May. When she asks about his screaming, he shrugs it off with an apology, saying it was just a regular ol’ nightmare, one of those where you don’t know what’s really wrong but you wake up afraid anyway, and she gives him a tight-lipped frown before kissing his forehead and padding back off to her room. Usually, now, he’ll just wake up panting, and he makes his way to the bathroom and splashes warm water on his face (because cold water reminds him of the dripping pipes under the rubble), careful not to get any on the floor, because that’s a trigger now too, apparently.

Once, after a particularly bad one where he gets dropped into the burning wreckage and is left to die as Toomes laughs at him from above, he makes his way to the bathroom, shaking, closing and locking the door behind him as he braces his hands on the countertop.

The Vulture suit’s claws left scars like dents in his chest and back. The nice doctor lady Mr. Stark made him talk to a few days after the incident, Dr. Cho, said they ripped entire chunks of his skin from his body, and that he’d have to wait for around a month for his healing factor to replenish it. It’s a… gross though, and honestly, he really, really doesn’t like looking at them, or feeling them, so he usually wears and shirt to bed, at least. But he came home from patrol absolutely _wiped,_ barely even able to keep his eyes open, so he’d just dropped the suit to the floor and stumbled into bed.

Now, though, he’s looking at them under the harsh glare of the bathroom lights and he realizes just how gory they are. On his shoulders and midsection, there’s trenches of absent flesh, only about half a pencil-width deep, but man did they look jagged. When he turned around, they were even worse- The slamming had resulted in longer scars, deeper in some places than others. Its really nasty, and Peter winces as he touches them even though they don’t hurt.

When he turns back around, he notices the bags under his eyes, purple and sunken. He also notices a little bit of stubble gathering around his face, a newly emerging feature of his steadily approaching adulthood.

He looks like shit. He’s a little afraid of it, actually; Peter doesn’t think he’s looked this wrecked since the day Ben died and he’d in his bedroom for hours, crying and crying and crying, before he eventually let May in and reveled in the comfort she provided.

For the briefest of moments, he considers doing it again- Going into her room and admitting that he’s not alright, and he’s afraid of things he wasn’t afraid of before, like small spaces and the dark and cold water. But he doesn’t. Instead, he splashes water in his face, wipes it off with a towel (makes sure not to leave any puddles) and goes back to his bed, trying to get the rest of his shuteye in before the school day tomorrow.

µ

Come next year, the nightmares haven’t stopped, but he’s learned to control them. Plus, the scars are gone, which is cool. Plus plus, they won first at regionals for AcaDec, and they’re going to state.

Minus, he has his first panic attack on the bus. 

It’s strange, really, when it happens. Peter’s been on buses before after the… Incident, and even on trains underground, and he was fine. Okay, maybe a bit panicky and afraid the tunnel would collapse or that the walls would get smaller, but other than that, fine. No panic attacks, no flashbacks, just fine. But, as they’re passing through a tunnel, and all the light in the bus gets drowned out just as MJ finishes reading the question off the flashcard, it hits.

“What is the primary purpose of the thoracic spine in humans?”

It’s a totally innocent question. But when she says it, and Abe rings the bell, the world starts to close in on Peter like a vice. The walls of the bus are smaller, suddenly, and he starts to hyperventilate, and his body is _screaming_ at him to get out and away, to push the rubble off of himself and get the hell out of Dodge, but he can’t, because suddenly his muscles are seizing and he’s fallen onto the floor of the bus, still sucking in panicked breaths even after the bus is long past the shadows, curling into a ball as tears stream down his face.

Michelle looks down at him, and even though he knows, logically, that her voice is full of concern and she’s saying _Peter, what’s wrong?_ It sounds like she’s saying “Good one, Pedro,” in Toomes’s voice, scratching and full of rage.

His body moves on its own accord, tossing him into the bus’s corner, and he stands, hands against the walls, eyes scanning over everyone it in. Harrington’s telling the driver to pull over, and MJ’s walking toward him, her arms out, searching his eyes. She looks like she knows what’s wrong, somehow, but his brain won’t let her help; It’s screaming _danger, danger, danger_ at him and he can’t breathe or speak, so he just shakes his head and looks everywhere he can for an escape, but he can’t find one, he can’t because there’s no way out and he’s fucking _trapped_ in here and there isn’t any way to get out and it’s crushing him-

“Peter, snap the _fucking out of it_ before I have to slap you!”

Michelle’s voice cuts through the fog, probably because she’s literally screaming right into his face, also probably because his eyes were clamped tightly shut, which he hadn’t realized until he had to work to pry them open.

She’s searching him, now, her own pupils spiked with adrenaline and worry. “You back with us, loser?”

He nods, then nods again, looking at the floor and her grip on his biceps loosens. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, guys. Just, uh-“ He searches for an explanation, but there is literally _not one_ that would fit, “Don’t know where that came from.”

They pull off and stop at a Wendy’s, and MJ asks Harrington to get everyone out of the bus to get some Frosties, telling him to grab two large chocolates for her and Peter before she joins him on the rough flooring of the bus, squeezes in between the seats.

He’s not looking at her because God, that was the most embarrassing moment of his entire _life_. But, regardless, she starts speaking to him anyway.

“You OK, Peter?”

He knows she’s serious, now, because she only uses his first name when she’s serious. He wipes his face, trying to clear some of the dried tears off his cheeks before nodding, his voice a quiet whisper. “Yeah. Just uh, I dunno. Freaked out. That was weird.”

“The panic attacks are from Spider-Man’ing, aren’t they?”

Peter shoots to his feet with a start, thinking he must be hallucinating. “What? No. I’m not Spider-Man, MJ.”

She can tell that probably struck a bad chord, because it’s not a dorky, loser-y denial that she’d expect from him- It’s wrought with panic, and she puts her hands up. “Sorry. Sorry, probably not the smartest thing to say after a panic attack.

It takes him a second to release the tension from his body, but he stays standing, because that sudden, out of the blue confrontation is what Toomes did, way back in that towncar, with a pistol in his hand and a murderous glint in his eye. “Why the _fuck_ would you think I’m Spider-Man, Michelle?”

Since it’s serious-mode time, he pulls out her first name, too, and she raises to sit on the seat, her motions slow, hands still in the air. “I just, uh, deduced it. I’m observant, Peter.”

“Why are you saying that like you _know it’s true?_ ” He says, the panic still a gentle hum in the back of his mind.

She shrugs, hands lowering to her knees, still a non-threatening position where he can still see them. “I just figured, considering the fact that it come on suddenly and you had no fucking clue what was going on, that they were a new thing. Probably a result of your side-gig.”

Michelle sighs, fixing with a deep, honest look. “My dad has PTSD from Afghanistan, Peter. I know what a panic attack looks like,” She frowns, breaking the gaze as she stares down at her hands. “And I also know what someone who has frequent panic attacks looks like. That’s sure as hell not you.”

Peter is looking at her, now, the fear melting away steadily. He knew her dad, and knew he was a solider, just never that he had PTSD. “Sorry. I just, uh. The only guy who ever asked me that tried to crush me with a giant metal wingsuit a few hours later, so.”

If the admittance shocks her, she doesn’t show it. Just nods, knowingly, and looks back up at him. “That was your first attack, wasn’t it?”

He sinks into the seat beside her, hands clamped between his thighs. “Yeah”

MJ turns to look at him, fixing him with that same honest, piercing gaze, and says “Is there anything predating it? Like, nightmares, or sudden fears that weren’t there before?”

Peter laughs quietly because, funny enough, that is literally his exact symptom set, and nods. When she asks if he’d told anyone about the nightmares- May, or Mr. Stark, or Ned, who isn’t on the trip because he caught the flu, he shakes his head, and she sighs.

“Peter. Adrian Toomes was arrested in September of _last year._ Are you saying you’ve been dealing with this stuff alone for nearing _ten months?_ ”

At his nod and downturned eyes, she scoots closer, whispering with a quiet, almost hurt tone, “Why didn’t you talk to us, Peter?”

To that, he honestly doesn’t have an answer. Its not pride, because he has so little of that he could pack it into cookie tin and ship it with no extra processing cost. And it’s not fear, because he knows he can trust the people around him. Suddenly, something comes to mind.

“I guess I just thought you guys would look differently at me. If I wasn’t a flawless, iron-hearted superhero, you know? I’m supposed to be strong, and like, hero-y. Not- Afraid of the dark, and small spaces, and cold water.”

Just then, Harrington returns with two Frosties, knocking on the door’s frames and holding the cups up. “Can I uh, come in?”

MJ stands, accepting the offering and asking for a few more minutes, saying she’ll let him know when they’re done. She returns to the seat, handing Peter one of the overflowing containers with a spoon already in it. He thanks her, and takes a few bites, savoring the warmth that returns to his mouth once he swallows.

“Can I ask you something, Peter?”

He looks to her, nodding, and that gaze is back, and for some reason it makes Peter feel like the words are hard to get out.

Michelle points to his pocket, where his phone rests in his pocket. “Call Stark. And Ned. And May. And tell them about this. Because, believe it or not, loser, they won’t look at you differently. None of us will. Because we care about you, even if you’re a bit too much of a noble goody-two-shoes sometimes.”

Peter laughs, rubbing his hands over Wendy’s face on his cup, clearing the condensation off the paper. “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

He stands, and so does she. But before she can shuffle out of the aisle and let him past, he encases her in a hug. “Thanks, MJ.”

She smiles, letting her arms curl around his back. “You’re welcome, dweeb. Now, go call them before I take your phone off you and do it myself.”

Peter gives a mock salute and a grin, shuffling back into the aisle to let her past the doors. He drops back into a seat, taking another bite of his Frostie before taking out his phone and tapping on Mr. Stark’s contact. He smiles as the familiar sound of 80’s-era punk and machines whirs through the speaker, followed by his mentor’s voice. “Hey, kid. What’s up? You good?”

Still smiling, he looks at the ground, and admits: “No, actually. Can you talk?”

µ

A lesson Peter learns over the next month is that, opposite to what he’d thought, heros aren’t strong all the time.

Tony, over the phonecall, told him about the panic attacks and nightmares he’d had since the wormhole. He even got Rhodey in on it, too, who shared the fact that his crash in Berlin resulted in PTSD. It took him months to get over the panic that rushed through him whenever he climbed into a suit.

He told May when they got back from state (which they’d won at, by the way), and she nearly yelled at him, but held off and decided on a hug instead. She knows when he wakes up screaming, now, that he needs help.

Ned, even though he was half-dead, vowed that he’d gladly stay up for hours past midnight playing games and talking if he ever needed him. MJ was more… Present in his life, now, which he honestly couldn’t find a problem with if he tried.

One day, he was working on a lit paper for Mr. Stanton, his sophomore teacher, and couldn’t find a conclusion. He’d spent _weeks_ planning it out because his new years resolution was to make his lit grades suck less, and the entire body came together perfectly, and he’d even had a full, tie-it-in-a-bow-and-call-it-done conclusion prewritten, too, but when he reached the end, it just didn’t fit. He just kept staring at the screen, his fingers refusing to budge. Then it came to him.

He flew across the keyboard, grinning like a madman as he attaches the final sentence:

_Trauma can stop us from being who we are. But it can’t stop us from finding new roots and becoming stronger than we were before. When the shade lifts, and the light hits, all we have to do is reach out, and find ourselves to be far less helpless than we thought._

When the paper gets handed back a week later, Peter sees a B- for lack of evidence and occasional improper use of grammar. But he doesn’t care. He thinks he did a damn fine job.


End file.
